I recently found out that my boyfriend of six months has been having sex with his ex-wife. This all came out when his 13 year old son came downstairs and caught his parents in the act. The child was very upset and started screaming at his father saying how can you do that when I know you do it with Ann. He and I are working through our issues. My main concern is for the child and what does he say to him? The plan is that we will be together going forward so how does he explain his behavior. How does he get past this with his son and let him know that it is not ok so that he doesn't grow up thinking that. Right now he won't even speak with him.
His ex-wife is very manipulative and the reason this all came about was that he had a sexual encounter with her a few weeks into our relationship, before we were serious and then months later began blackmailing him to have sex with her or she would tell me about the first time. I think we may need professional help to get his son through this.

I don't understand why you are more concerned with how to smooth this over with the boy, than you are about the fact that your boyfriend cheated on you. Why is that ok with you? If you really want to teach the boy that actions have consequences you will be done with his father.
anything less is not doing the child any favors

Have you considered that your boyfriend is getting the best of both worlds eg..you and his X..
I would be considering my future with him rather than worrying about his son.
It's the childs fathers resposibility to explain the situation to him.
Your boyfriends actions dont paint a potential future do they.

To answer your question I would get some counseling for the boy if I were the parent, we had something similiar happen w/ our son walking in on us around that age years ago and ended up getting him some counseling. He was very angry at us when it happened (and we were together and married!!!) so you're probably getting the anger from both ends. Good luck,

My thoughts.....think of yourself. He hurt you by cheating , he will do it again probably. Leave him i'd say. Its upto you of course. Can you forgive him and trust him again? Hes hurt his son too , so its his responsibility to make amends with his son. I'm thinking of how your feeling. Your the one who got cheated on. I dont buy the 'blackmail' excuse either.

Blackmail? What could she possibly have over him that would be strong enough to be used as blackmail? This isn't the movies, this is real life, so unless it was something like covering up a major crime for which he could get arrested, the blackmail story is weak and I wouldn't buy it for a second.

Secondly, the kid is rightly angry with his cheating dad because at least the kid knows right from wrong. Pretty sad when a 13 year old has more sense than an adult. I don't believe there is any way for your boyfriend to make this up to him. He got himself into this situation by the bad choices he made, now he has to suffer the consequences, including losing the respect of his son. I hope it was worth it cause he may never get it back. That kid is going to remember this and he probably won't ever respect his dad again. Furthermore, he may also lose respect for you for staying after this, so be prepared for that to happen. He sounds like a smart kid, way smarter than his dad!

Why would you even consider continuing the relationship with this guy when he's cheated on you and you would have to deal with a manipulative ex-wife? Time to move on. I feel bad for the child, but this has to be addressed by the father and mother...not you.

Sorry Anna, I gotta call it like I see it. The blackmail story is straight up cow puckies. If he cared about you at all, he would have told you he cheated himself and beat his ex wife to the punch, begged for forgiveness and commited to you. But he didn't do that. He continued to have sex with his ex wife. She didn't lead him down any path that he wasn't willing to go himself. He's lying to you, and very badly.

As for what to tell his son, that's up to the two of them. It's really unfortunate that they've chosen to mess things up and confuse and hurt him like this, but they are his parents. They are the ones who need to figure out how to deal with their own family mess. One thing you do have the power to teach the boy, though...what does a good, self-respecting woman do when her man cheats on her repeatedly? How you let his father get away with this will also go a long way toward teaching the boy about relationships between men and women.